Architecture for Alternate Airdates

For me, my needs break down into two different categories: 

** DVD ordering (not only the Firefly issues of the episodes in a completely different order from how they aired but when a DVD release combines a two-part episode into one) This is important for systems such as PLEX to be able to scrape correct data. 

** Episodes airing in my country (all the episodes, not just the first) after they have aired in another. It does me no good to know when Victoria aired in the UK. If I want to watch it, I need to know when it airs where I am. 

Makes perfect sense to me :)

Another usecase came to mind (somewhat similar to #1): for networks like Scripps, where episodes have the network assigned numbers, but aired in random order, therefore we converted them to year-based numbering. Now we can alternatively list them using the network's numeration.

@LadyShelley The first part is even already possible with our existing alternate DVD lists :) See https://www.tvmaze.com/faq/40/alternate-episodes under "merged episodes" and "split episodes". The second part, episodes airing in my country, would become possible with the implementation of this feature!

@tnt Right, good one. How would we possibly name/classify that one though?

@david wrote:
@tnt Right, good one. How would we possibly name/classify that one though?

Something like "Production order" or "Network assigned order"?

The screenshots are looking pretty good. Any thoughts yet what user level will be able to edit those?

@JuanArango wrote:
The screenshots are looking pretty good. Any thoughts yet what user level will be able to edit those?

I suppose the current permissions are fine. TC and above to create list, anyone to add episodes.

@tnt wrote:
I suppose the current permissions are fine. TC and above to create list, anyone to add episodes.

Sounds fair!

1. I think selecting 'Country Premiere' should then display a list of Network & Web Channels in that country to choose from

2. Make sure that the Network/Web Channel on the show information isn't present in the lists (we don't want the main to be Netflix, then someone adds a redundant 'Streaming Premiere' of Netflix)

3. The lists should exclude anything that's already added (or error) - max 1 per country + streaming + broadcast + language - this may be for future revisions though

4. It's unclear from the screenshot if you can define a single list as multiple types, f.e. country, broadcast & language premiere.

5. Alternate Episodes added to lists for a Global Web Channel should not have an airtime, like it does for normal episodes

.

In terms of permissions, I'd say Trusted Contributor to create the lists, Standard Contributor to add episodes

@gazza911 wrote:
1. I think selecting 'Country Premiere' should then display a list of Network & Web Channels in that country to choose from

And vise versa. Selecting a network should automatically select (and lock) the corresponding country. So you can't select BBC One and then the United States.

2. Make sure that the Network/Web Channel on the show information isn't present in the lists (we don't want the main to be Netflix, then someone adds a redundant 'Streaming Premiere' of Netflix)

Netflix (and other global web channels like Prime Video) could have a different premiere date for different countries. For example, season 3 of Frontier premiered on Netflix in the U.S. on 2018-11-23, but in Canada on 2019-11-23, exactly one year later.

Alternate country airdates is something I've been hoping that would be implemented here since as long as I can remember, and streaming Vs transmission by networks would be great, especially now that more and more networks are series dumping on their streaming services after the first episode transmits on the network (In the UK, the BBC & CH4 have started doing this a lot!).

Would the alternate airdates appear in the daily schedule?

@gazza911 wrote:
1. I think selecting 'Country Premiere' should then display a list of Network & Web Channels in that country to choose from

I guess that makes sense.. a country premiere will always be on either a network or a non-global web channel. Will probably do this, just have to think about the UI for a bit.

2. Make sure that the Network/Web Channel on the show information isn't present in the lists (we don't want the main to be Netflix, then someone adds a redundant 'Streaming Premiere' of Netflix)

Not sure if that's really necessary, there's a million of mistakes you can make with alternate lists, that's why creating them will continue to be limited to TC for now.

3. The lists should exclude anything that's already added (or error) - max 1 per country + streaming + broadcast + language - this may be for future revisions though

Already done

4. It's unclear from the screenshot if you can define a single list as multiple types, f.e. country, broadcast & language premiere.

Yep, a list can have any number of types.

5. Alternate Episodes added to lists for a Global Web Channel should not have an airtime, like it does for normal episodes

Check!

@tnt wrote:
And vise versa. Selecting a network should automatically select (and lock) the corresponding country. So you can't select BBC One and then the United States.

If I'm going with gazza's suggestion, I'll probably just remove the country dropdown entirely and infer that based on the chosen network/web channel.

Netflix (and other global web channels like Prime Video) could have a different premiere date for different countries. For example, season 3 of Frontier premiered on Netflix in the U.S. on 2018-11-23, but in Canada on 2019-11-23, exactly one year later.

That's explicitly not going to be supported with this feature, global webchannel availability is a different beast entirely to be dealt with another day. :)

@TonyMayhew wrote:
Alternate country airdates is something I've been hoping that would be implemented here since as long as I can remember, and streaming Vs transmission by networks would be great, especially now that more and more networks are series dumping on their streaming services after the first episode transmits on the network (In the UK, the BBC & CH4 have started doing this a lot!).

Yeah, those "sneak previews"/"first look" in the UK are the main inspiration for the streaming premiere & broadcast premiere types :)

Would the alternate airdates appear in the daily schedule?

This is first and foremost about creating the architecture and getting some data in. It would make sense for the schedule/calendar to optionally support the alternate airdates as well, but no timeline/promises there.

Please check out the draft policy at https://www.tvmaze.com/faq/50/alternate-airdates-draft and the beta version at https://staging.tvmaze.net/alternatelist/create?show_id=1069

@david I realise that I didn't think about this before, but what about Netflix premieres where they release in multiple languages at the same time.

Are we expected to create 5 seperate alternate episode lists that are a copy of each other, except from the language, or will it be possible to assign more than one language/country to a single alternate episode list?

In terms of bugs:

1. Not selecting anything displays "Unknown" as the title, but "World Premiere" in the dropdown to select alternate list
2. In the above, it is not displayed under Show | Episodes as there's already a World Premiere
3. Selecting 'Language Premiere' but not a language causes an unhandled error, rather than an error message
4. Alternate Lists dropdown has a hardcoded width, so x country premiere always gets cut off
5. You can have multiple country premieres for the same country
6. Edit Alternate List button still displays for standard contributors (but they are correctly denied access)

@gazza911 wrote:
@david I realise that I didn't think about this before, but what about Netflix premieres where they release in multiple languages at the same time.

Are we expected to create 5 seperate alternate episode lists that are a copy of each other, except from the language, or will it be possible to assign more than one language/country to a single alternate episode list?

"This type of list can be used to indicate when episodes are aired for the first time in a different language than the original". If the show is already premiered in multiple languages, this wouldn't apply, so no alternate list can be created. On top of that, we currently - and perhaps indefinitely - only allow a single language (English) for the language premiere type. 

In terms of bugs:

Thanks!

In terms of the policy:

Verbatim order

"The name should be left empty so that the original episode names are automatically used."

This probably shouldn't apply to merged episodes when the original network marks it as a 2-parter / has two production codes, but actually broadcasted it as a single continuous episode.

It also wouldn't apply if we've changed it to yearly based as the episode number won't match up. For example, we don't want to keep the episode name as "Episode 2" [of Season 2020], if the verbatim order is "Episode 10" [of Season 2].

Country premiere

I assume you're going to update or remove the "It may currently only be used for the following countries" section haha

DId I get that right, and global premieres (Netflix, Prime Video, etc.) are not supported and alternate lists are limited to local networks/web channels only?

I see them in the list of web channels, but the policy explicitly excluding global channels.

In terms of usability: manually entering the season and episode number for alternate streaming/broadcast premiere seems redundant. If they are the same as in the world premiere, they should be inherited (same as the episode name), and manual entry should be required only when the alternate premiere has a different order of episodes.

Another idea: instead of naming the list "Streaming premiere", automatically substitute streaming with the name of web channel, i.e. "iBBC Player premiere". The same way it is done for the country or language.

@david wrote:
Made you a CC, that should do it, right?

yeah, it did the trick :)

It doesn't make sense to say both "indicate the (worldwide)" & "may only be used when the Web Channel is in the same country".

It is interesting, I've seen Netfix release series which they consider as exclusives.

They release it globally, except in the country of origin (where it actually premieres) - basically week by week straight after it airs in the original country. It's more common with Korean and some Japanese shows.

Under the draft policy, we'd not be allowed to add Netflix as the streaming premiere (though it could be flagged as the English language premiere).

Personally I think you should allow two streaming premieres:

1. From the country of origin
2. Global

Language premiere probably should be disabled (or hidden/removed) for the shows originally in English. At least while only English is allowed for language premiere.